At the age of 16, Martin Weiss was among those liberated from the Gunskirchen concentration camp in May of 1945. “We were all living corpses rather than people,” he said. “We were completely dehumanized. We had no strength. We were literally starved. Every day there were loads of people dying.” Weiss will speak at St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) of those times Thursday, November 12, at 2 p.m. in the Blackistone Room of Anne Arundel Hall. The talk is part of the 14th Annual Holocaust and Genocide Series, and is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Björn Krondorfer at (240) 895-4219 orbhkrondorfer@smcm.edu.
Weiss was born in 1929 in Polana, a rural village in what is now the Czech Republic. In 1939, his village was occupied by Hungarian forces, and, in early 1944, he and his family were put into cattle cars and deported to the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Weiss, along with the older male members of his family, were chosen for forced labor and moved to the Mauthausen concentration camp. After liberation, Weiss reunited with several family members, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1946. Today, he is retired and lives near Washington, D.C.
The Annual Holocaust and Genocide Series has taken place at St. Mary’s College since 1993. The annual series of events aims to study and commemorate the Holocaust and other genocides. Speakers have included scholars, historians, authors, Jewish survivors, American liberators, and descendants of victim and perpetrator generations. Events often include music, poetry, documentary films, and movies.